2015: Nike self-lacing shoes. Hoverboard not guaranteed

Nike has officially stated that it will release self-lacing trainers in 2015. We're taking their word for it, and may the gadget gods have mercy on their souls if they don't deliver.

Our wallets weren't deep enough to snap up a pair of Nike MAG replica trainers three years ago, and we don't think we can take a second disappointment.

And as for the hoverboard? We're staying delusionally optimistic. But we have been burned before...

2016: Waterproof iPhone

15 tech predictions for the future

By the end of 2015, every phone will come with a charger, some rubbish headphones you wouldn't even give to your hamster to chew on, and an adorable mini rubber ring to stop it from sinking in the bath.

Apple, being Apple, will opt to arrive to the waterproof phone pool party fashionably late, but you just know it'll arrive in the snazziest swimsuit around.

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2017: Moore's Law ends

15 tech predictions for the future

Way back in 1965, a fellow called Gordon Moore (a co-founder of Intel) published a paper called "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits".

In it, Moore correctly predicted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles roughly every two years. And wouldn't you know it, his theory has been pretty much spot this entire time.

It's the reason your smartphone is more powerful than your first PC, and it's been a glorious, reliable central pillar of the tech world.

But it won't last forever.

Moore himself has stated that his law will cease to exist in 2017, where it will become physically impossible to cram any more transistors onto a chip. At least without bending the laws of the 5th dimension.

Ah well. We had a good run.

2018: Cars self-driving in traffic

15 tech predictions for the future

In three years, merging onto the M25 could result in a rather nice nap, as opposed to the enraging gridlocked disaster it is today. And it's not because you'll be able to afford a private chauffeur either.

Google's self-driving cars are aiming to reach a level where they'll be safer than human-controlled cars, and given their track record so far, it looks very promising indeed.

Out of hundreds of test drives, the only two incidents have been down to the negligence of human operators.

Google's ultimate aim is to distribute its tech to car manufacturers, so while you might not be able to afford a self-aware super car in 2018, you'll certainly be whizzing around in one by 2030.

If the machines don't eradicate the human race entirely by then, that is.

2019: Intel releases graphene transistor

15 tech predictions for the future

Graphene has long been touted as the tech world's next big wonder material, but it has yet to enter our lives in any meaningful way outside of a lab environment.

For those that don't know, graphene is a material made form individual carbon atoms connected to each other in a chicken wire fence-like lattice, in a layer that's one atom thin.

It's got plenty of useful properties and graphene transistors have already been shown to be twice as fast as their silicon equivalents.

Theoretically, this could result in processors with clock speeds measure in terahertz. As in THz. Almost scary, isn't it?